With the advent of the computer age, computer and software users have grown accustomed to user-friendly software applications that help them write, calculate, organize, prepare presentations, send and receive electronic mail, make music, and the like. For example, modem electronic word processing applications allow users to prepare a variety of useful documents. Modern spreadsheet applications allow users to enter, manipulate, and organize data. Modem electronic slide presentation applications allow users to create a variety of slide presentations containing text, pictures, data or other useful objects. Modern database applications allow users to store, organize and exchange large amounts of data.
In a typical setting, users enter and edit text or data in documents or files generated with such applications, for example, memoranda, spreadsheets, slide presentations, database files, and the like. During text or data entry, or during subsequent editing of text or data, users often apply various properties, such as formatting properties, to text or data. For example, in a given paragraph in a school term paper, a student may desire to boldface a word, italicize a word or number, change the font properties on a text or data entry, and the like. Indeed, the vast majority of tool selection during text/data entry and editing comes from simple text formatting commands like boldface, italics and font.
The traditional location of buttons or controls for selecting these types of commands is in a toolbar located along an edge of a user interface being used to enter and edit the text or data. Selecting commands from such statically located toolbars is inefficient because the user must first select a text, data or other object in the document and then move an electronic pointer, for example, a mouse pointer, to the desired command button or control in the toolbar to select the desired command. The user must then move the pointer back to the editing position in the document for making additional edits, if desired.
Pop-up contextual menus are available for deploying near a text/data entry or editing point. Such contextual menus typically require a secondary selection, such as a right mouse click, for deploying the menu, and such contextual menus typically contain many different functionality controls or buttons in addition to the simple formatting functions most commonly and frequently used on selected objects. Also, when a user selects a given command from such contextual menus, the deployed menu typically closes after the selection. If the user desires additional functionality from the contextual menu, the contextual menu must be re-deployed by the user.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.